


Of The Deep

by Morimaitar



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Captivity, Creepy Roman Sionis, Digital Art, Disfigurement, Experimentation, Gen, Illustrations, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mercenary Slade Wilson, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reluctant Dad Slade Wilson, SladeRobin Week, merfolk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:22:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27209578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morimaitar/pseuds/Morimaitar
Summary: “So this is his lordship’s lost pet,” Slade muses. “Tell me: can you speak? Fetch? Roll over?”The mer looks up at him with eyes as green and as wet as the sea. For the first time, Slade sees the shock of white hair above its forehead, the silver scars across its skin.Inland, common folk whisper about the beauty of mer, the sculpted features that draw sailors towards an irresistible doom.Their beauty is dangerous, they say.A lure for foolish men.But Slade Wilson is no foolish man.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Slade Wilson, Jason Todd & Slade Wilson
Comments: 48
Kudos: 259
Collections: SladeRobin Week 2020





	Of The Deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [withthekeyisking](https://archiveofourown.org/users/withthekeyisking/gifts).



> For the Sladin Week Day 2 prompt: Merfolk
> 
> Illustrations are related, but do not directly correspond with the events of the story.

THE mer would be easy to miss.

As the Hunter wanders the outskirts of the city, knives hidden beneath the folds of his cloak, he pretends not to notice the figure at the end of the dock. This is not a difficult task. The evening market is bustling, with merchants hawking goods on both sides of the cobblestone street, carts and ships docking at once, and large, undulating crowds moving in every possible direction. And there are colors too—pinks, blues, greens, yellows—falling from bodies, rippling in the sea breeze, displayed in bunches on tables and barrows. Gulls screech overhead; the air is thick with salt and the scent of rotting seaweed. 

Yes, quite easy to miss, indeed. Any ordinary man would look right pass, seeing nothing but a fisherman who stands too close to the water. 

But Slade Wilson is no ordinary man. 

He walks slowly to the water, studying the silent language of the figure, calculating the risks. Strange, that a mer so close to home would remain at the edge of the dock.

 _A trap,_ Slade thinks, then huffs at the folly of it. Any lord within fifty leagues would be a fool to lay a trap for the Deathstroke. 

Lord Sionis is many things, but a fool is not one of them. 

As he approaches the mer, Slade takes note of its form. The upper half of its body takes the form of a man, well-built and broad at the shoulders, with dark hair that ripples in the sea breeze. Had it human legs, and not the iridescent tail that peeks out from beneath the edge of its cloak, Slade might have taken it for a blacksmith, or perhaps a huntsman. It is too thin to be a knight. 

Slade pauses about two feet back, a buffer in case the creature decides to lash out. One hand he keeps at the harpoon gun on his hip. The mer’s tail is visible from such a short distance, a thick trunk of black scales that glint red in the sunlight. Crimson flashes beneath the water—its fins. 

The mer stiffens. No doubt it smells the blood in Slade’s veins, the heat of his human skin. But, curiously, it does not disappear into the water. 

“What have we here?” Slade asks gruffly, prodding its cloak with the toe of his boot. The mer flinches without looking at him. “Thought I would have had to reel you in.” 

No response. Perhaps the rumors of merfolk whispering in human tongues are entirely unfounded. Either that, or the creature is being willfully obstinate. Slade prefers the latter. A fortnight has passed since a hunt has proved to be a challenge. 

“So this is his lordship’s lost pet,” he muses. “Tell me: can you speak? Fetch? Roll over?” 

The mer looks up at him with eyes as green and as wet as the sea. For the first time, Slade sees the shock of white hair above its forehead, the silver scars across its skin. 

Inland, common folk whisper about the beauty of mer, the sculpted features that draw sailors towards an irresistible doom. _Their beauty is dangerous,_ they say. _A lure for foolish men._

But Slade Wilson is no foolish man. The mer is attractive, handsome even, though Slade has little desire to flirt with death. With a Hunter’s eye he sees something dark lingers beneath the creature’s visage. A sadness, perhaps? Resignation? He studies its face, his fingers grazing the handle of the harpoon gun. 

_Any moment now the beast will flee._

Yet nothing happens. Slade cocks his head to one side, curiosity piquing with every calm second. At last, he says, “You make no effort to get away. Why?” 

A wet wind blows over them, carrying the question back toward the market. The mer shivers in the breeze, holding its cloak tighter against its skin, and for the first time Slade notices the wet curls at its temple and the base of its hairline. So it had been in the water after all. And now it sits quietly at the edge of a dock, looking more like a man in mourning than a monster of the deep. 

_Damn lords,_ Slade thinks. He had hoped a mer would prove a more stimulating adversary—no other creature possesses such speed, strength, or agility, let alone teeth that can slice muscle into ribbons. At least, that is what they say. 

_A most deadly animal,_ Lord Sionis had said. _Which is precisely why I require someone of your caliber. Two hundred gold pieces for its capture, if you make it back alive._

“Very well,” Slade grunts, retrieving iron cuffs from his belt. “I suggest you come willingly. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” 

The mer eyes the cuffs, then turns back toward the water. Another abnormality. Every creature Slade has hunted, every beast he has slain, every soldier, all of them have only ever fought or fled. One does not simply look upon the Deathstroke and do nothing. 

Until now. 

Frustration stirs in Slade’s core. There’s something else there too, a darker emotion he cares not to name. He thinks of his sons, during that short period in which he was a father and not just a Hunter, and how easily they put his patience to the test. 

A preposterous thought. To hell with its human appearance—the mer is a monster, not a child. Easy money, that’s all it is. 

“Fine,” Slade growls, grabbing the creature by the upper arm to yank it toward him. Like a pup caught in a trap it lets out a small yelp, though the weight of it is more than Slade was expecting. He succeeds in straining its arm, nothing more. 

The mer fixes him with a displeased stare. If it is in pain, it doesn’t show it. 

Slade swears, and tries again, reaching into his core to procure the force needed to drag the creature from the water. His Hunter’s strength surges inside him, power that could crush stone and split wood. And yet, inexplicably, the mer does not move.

He looks. Its free hand grips the pier, holding tight to the wooden planks. 

“Seven hells,” Slade mutters. “I _will_ break your arm.”

The mer remains unstirred. “Please,” it says, so quietly that the word is nearly lost to the wind. Even so, its voice is rich and deep, almost human. 

Slade does not let it get to him. “So you can talk,” he says. 

“Please.”

“Is that all you can say, or are you still playing dumb?” 

“I ask for…” The mer pauses. Slade can tell from the way it furrows its brow in concentration that its grasp of the common tongue is less than fluent. “…I ask for more time. Then I go. Will not fight.” 

“More time?” Slade chuckles, a low sound that vibrates throughout his chest. “Do you take me for an idiot?” 

The mer frowns. “Won’t swim away,” it says. “I will go, after.”

An obvious lie in any other circumstance. Slade reads the creature’s face, searching for a reason to distrust it. He finds none. 

Still, he asks, “And why should I believe the word of a monster?” 

“I can’t.” 

“Can’t what?” Slade’s eye narrows. “Speak.”

Something dark crosses the mer’s face. It looks at something—its hand—and Slade finds himself following its gaze. The hand is strong and scarred, human except for the dark stains at the end of its fingers. Like spilled pigment. 

Slade looks away, squeezing its arm tighter. “Speak,” he says again, his voice dipping into a growl. 

The mer’s eyes flash a deeper green. “Can’t swim,” it replies bitterly. 

Now _that_ Slade will not believe. 

“What do you take me for?” he hisses, squeezing the mer’s arm until the bone threatens to crack beneath his fist. White-hot anger surges in his chest. “Do you not know who I am? What I am?” 

“I _can’t,”_ the mer says, struggling to pull its arm away. The parallel fins on his neck flutter wildly. No, not fins. Gills.

“You lie.”

“Hand.”

Again Slade looks at its hand. “I see nothing.” 

“Fingers cut,” it says, opening and closing its fist. “No fins. Can’t hold water.”

Indeed, several fraying fins line the inside edges of its fingers. If the hand was webbed once, it has since been torn to shreds. But still it works.

Slade’s lip curls into a sneer. “Surely a few cuts aren’t enough to incapacitate one of the _great merfolk.”_

The mer lets out a strange curse. Something splashes, and the end of a great tail rises from the water. Like the rest of the mer it is riddled with scars and strange markings—tattoos? brands?—though they are not what catch the Hunter’s attention. 

“Fuck,” he mutters.

At the end of the tail, the crimson fins are torn to shreds. 

“There,” the mer says, letting its tail slip back beneath the waves. “Proof. Can’t swim, can’t hide.” 

A quiet bitterness takes the place of Slade’s anger. So a wealthy lord has sent him to fetch a crippled pet. Here he stands: a Hunter and an errand boy. 

Slade lets go of the mer’s arm. No use wasting his strength, or even using it at all. “You escaped,” he grunts. “And yet you cannot swim. Why?” 

“If I talk,” the mer begins, “I can stay longer?” 

“For now.” 

The mer closes its eyes against the falling sun. Its tail swishes through the water like a pendulum, glinting and shimmering as the waves lap the dark scales. “I am the biggest,” it says. 

Slade raises an eyebrow. The creature before him cannot be more than twelve feet long, fifteen at most. He could cleave it in half with a single blow from his sword. “I have heard your kind could crush a ballinger in the coil of its tail.”

“In ocean, maybe. I am the biggest in cage,” the mer replies, dragging its tail through the water, back and forth, back and forth. “Dick said maybe I am strong enough to swim in ocean. He made me leave.” 

“And who is Dick?” 

The creature fixes its eyes on the waves. “A friend.”

“A mer, you mean.” Slade huffs, looking back at the city. The crowds in the market have thinned somewhat. Perhaps it is best that they wait a little longer—he hates to be a spectacle. “Since when do monsters have names?” 

“I have a name,” the mer says, its face darkening. “And I’m not a monster.”

“I know several dead men who would disagree,” Slade grunts. 

“They hurt us, we hurt then.”

A human thought, but one Slade refuses to entertain. Instead he asks, “Then why, pray tell, do you not hurt me?” 

“You’re a Hunter.” The mer shrugs, a familiar gesture that brings an itch to Slade’s spine. “I hurt you, you hurt me worse.” 

“You’re smart for a monster.” 

The mer’s lip pulls back over its teeth. They’re sharp, though not as sharp as those Slade has seen in drawings. It’s almost as if they have been ground into dullness. “Not a monster,” it says sharply. “But I wish I could hurt you.” 

Again Slade finds himself chuckling. He crosses his arms over his chest, cocking his head to one side. “By all means,” he says, smirking. “Be my guest.”

“Can’t.”

“Smart choice.”

The mer stares bitterly at the horizon. “Not a choice,” it mutters. 

Slade grunts in reply. 

“I could hurt you if I lived there.” The mer points to the water. “Strong fins. Sharp teeth. Rip you apart if you touch me.” 

It’s a curious creature; Slade will give it that. The kind of creature that makes one wonder strange things that no sane man would dare voice out loud. But it’s not in a Hunter’s nature to wonder, least of all Slade’s.

“Big words for a lord’s pet,” he says. 

“Not a pet.”

“Mmm. Not a monster, and not a pet. I’m beginning to think you are not anything at all.” 

“I’m Jason,” the mer says. 

Slade laughs. “How kind of Lord Sionis to give you a name.”

An inhuman hiss leaves the creature’s lips, sharp and wet as the wind. “Do not say that.”

“I’ll say whatever I like.” Slade’s eye narrows. “You sit here because I allow it.” 

Cursing, the mer tears its eyes away from Slade. Its jaw clenches. “If I am a monster,” it begins, after a moment. “Why do you let me sit and talk?”

“It amuses me.” 

“Oh.”

Silence falls between them. Slade listens for the sound of distant waves, of gulls screeching overhead. The stench of sand and seaweed rises from the planks beneath his feet. Perhaps long ago, before he had taken the elixir that warped him from man to Hunter, he would have appreciated a night like this. Perhaps he and Adeline would have come to the docks together, dangling their feet in the water while the crowds dissipate and the sun falls from the sky. Perhaps, in such a reality, his sons would still be alive.

But such dreams are folly. _This_ is folly. 

“Your time is up,” Slade grunts, wrapping a large hand around the back of the creature’s neck. It hisses, but does not fight back. “I can drag you through the water or over the dock. Your choice.” 

The mer mutters something in a language Slade does not understand.

“Speak,” he orders. 

“Water.”

“Very well.” Slade moves his grip to its wrist, digging his fingers into the groves between bone. He is about to shove it off the dock when the mer speaks.

“Wait,” it says. “The cloak.” 

Rolling his eyes, Slade yanks the cloak off its shoulders and pushes it into the water. The creature slips into the waves with hardly a splash. Halfway submerged, it looks alarmingly human, like one of the Druid folk up north. But its skin feels wrong. Too cold, too slippery. 

“Bloody calm for a runaway,” Slade mutters as he walks back down the dock, tugging the mer behind him. “Makes one think you want to go back.”

“I don’t,” it replies. 

“Hmm.”

“But I have to.” 

_Fucking monsters and their fucking tongues._ Of course they cannot speak plainly. Every word is another mystery. 

This time, Slade chooses to ignore it. 

When they come to the end of the dock, where wooden planks meet the stone edge of the city, Slade’s fist is frozen around the creature’s wrist. A few passerby cast curious gazes in their direction, directed equally at the two of them: the cloaked Hunter and the pretty face half-hidden by the waves. Only the bravest and most foolish continue to stare when Slade meets their eyes. 

“I don’t suppose you can move on land,” he asks the mer. 

Its reply is brief. “No.”

Slade figured as much. He whistles sharply, letting the wind carry the sound toward the back of the marketplace. Kane will hear him; the steed’s ears can make out his voice from a quarter league’s distance. Sure enough, it is only a minute before a copper-brown horse finds its way through the crowd, pulling a small cart behind it. 

“Give me a reason to hurt you, and I will,” Slade grunts. 

The mer glares, as if Slade’s Hunter eyes could not make out the quiet resignation behind its gaze. A pathetic attempt at defiance. 

Slade smirks as he heaves the creature from the water, feeling the slick wet of its skin soak the front of his tunic. It’s thirty stone at least, though to a Hunter the weight is hardly unwieldy. With his arms wrapped around the mer’s torso, Slade drags it to the cart, ignoring the wide eyes and gasps of those around him. City guards reach for their weapons. Mothers clasp their hands over their children’s eyes and usher them away. Perhaps they anticipate a fight, or a curse, harsh words in some demonic tongue. 

Their thoughts are meaningless. Slade knows what he is, and what he is not. And besides, he was not paid to play to the expectations of peasants. 

He throws the mer into the back of the cart and begins the long trek around the city. 

🙫🙫🙫

🙫🙫🙫

FOR some time, the creature remains silent. Slade glances at it every so often, suspicion keeping him on edge. Their path has taken them on the cliffside roads; a few twists of its body, and the mer could escape into the churning water far below. _It has done it once,_ Slade thinks. _It can do it again._

His eye falls to the shredded fins, the strange twist in its tail where there should be none. 

_Or perhaps not._

The world darkens around them. Purple sky falls to blue, then indigo, and soon the nightbirds take the place of gulls. Still the mer keeps its eyes fixed on the ever-shrinking ocean, brow furrowed in concentration, as if it could draw the black water up the rocky cliffside.

As if it can sense him looking, the mer hugs its tail to its chest. There’s a strange mark above its right pectoral, raised and pink against the pale color of its skin. _RS,_ Slade realizes. A brand. 

He adjusts the cloak on his shoulders. “Seems that his lordship likes to mark his property,” he says.

“Not his property.”

“My contract says otherwise.”

“Maybe contract is wrong.” 

Slade chuckles, guiding Kane around a large boulder in their path. The wheels of the cart scrape over the uneven terrain. “A contract’s a contract,” he replies. “It’s not my duty to examine the truth of it.” 

The mer says nothing. 

Thrusting his chin toward the waves, Slade says, “Tell me how you escaped.” 

“Why?” 

“Perhaps I want to keep a mer of my own.” He leers at the creature, more for show than anything else. “You are quite pretty to look at, even if you are a monster.” 

The mer’s jaw twitches, but its eyes maintain their distant sadness. “Climbed out of cage. Servant helped. Hid in cart until it reached there,” it says, pointing toward one of the bends behind them. “I dove into the water, and came to the dock when I couldn’t swim.” 

“A lot of work for a vacation,” Slade says. 

“Dick told me to get help.” 

“You mean the other mer.” 

“I mean _Dick,”_ it says sharply. “He said, ‘you go and get us out.’ But I think he just wanted me to save me.” 

“How noble of him,” Slade muses, smirking. “Tell me. Why are you so eager to escape the home of Lord Sionis?”

“We are not toys.” 

The Hunter gives it a look. “That doesn’t answer my question.” 

A moment passes. Something dark passes over its eyes, drawing it’s pretty face into a scowl. “He hurts us,” the mer says. “Burns. Cuts. Bad things.”

“His business is his.” 

“Sometimes he takes tool to our mouths.” The mer bares its teeth, runs a tongue over them. “When teeth grow too sharp, he makes them flat. It hurts.” 

Slade huffs into his collar. “I don’t care.”

The mer quiets, looking over at Slade. In the dark, its eyes glow like ocean gems. “I know you don’t care,” it says. “Humans don’t care.”

 _Human._ The word brings a bitter taste to Slade’s mouth. 

“I’m not a human,” he grunts. 

A quiet look passes over the mer’s face. “And I’m not a monster,” it replies. 

The exchange falls flat. Between them, Slade can only hear the crashing of waves against rocks, the hiss of heavy winds stirring their hair. The mer shivers and holds itself tighter. In the dark of twilight, when its scars are more difficult to make out, the creature appears younger. No more than twenty-five winters are present on its face. 

Only a little younger than Joseph, were Joseph still alive. 

_Can you hear me, boy?_

_I’m sorry, son. I have no choice._

Slade shoves aside the memories, and presses on. 

It is well into the night by the time he arrives at the lonely castle. The ocean is a black mouth behind them, swallowing the stars as they cross the horizon. Only the loudest waves crash upon Slade’s ears. 

The mer grips the edge of the cart until its knuckles are white and bloodless. 

Slade keeps his eye forward as he approaches the gates, waiting for the creature to speak again. He has never been good with shared silence. Such a thing is too complicated, too saturated. It is much better to journey on his own, or with the dead, who do not have unspoken thoughts. 

“State your purpose,” says the guard at the gate. His grip is tight around his halberd, an amusing sight. As if his meager training could conquer the will of the Deathstroke. 

But Slade is not here for a fight. “I’ve got something of your lord’s,” he says gruffly, nodding his head toward the back of the cart. “There was a contract. I am here to fulfill my part in it.” 

The guard looks over Slade’s shoulder, eyes widening in surprise. “Gotham’s tits,” he mutters. “You actually caught it.”

_Idiot._

“I suggest you let me pass,” Slade growls. “For your sake.” 

Thus end the pleasantries. The guard steps aside, motions to the men atop the walls. There is the scrape of metal over stone, the whine of hinges, and the gates part to let him through. 

Slade grunts in acknowledgement. Taking Kane by the reins, he leads them on. “Nothing to say?” he mumbles as he guides his horse through the gates of the castle. 

“Nothing you want to hear.” 

“Very well.” Brow furrowing, Slade removes the straps that tie his horse to the cart. Kane nickers softly. In relief, perhaps. “I’ve no investment in the words of a monster.” 

A moment passes as he waits for the mer’s familiar reply. Nothing comes. Sighing, Slade leaves the mer in the back of the cart and approaches the massive entrance. Doesn’t bother knocking. This, whatever _this_ is, needs to end. He has no time for pleasantries. 

“I’ve brought the mer,” he growls, before the guards can even raise their silly blades to his throat. “His lordship owes me pieces. Let him know I’m here before I rip your useless eyes from their sockets.” 

That seems to do the trick. Of course it does: every damned citizen knows what happens when you cross a Hunter. What they do to monsters, they do to men tenfold. 

Behind him, Slade hears the mer hissing. He turns around in time to see a guard snap iron shackles around its silvery wrists. The metal cuts into the skin, drawing deep red blood and evoking what appears to be a pained reaction in the mer. 

_It won’t fight you,_ Slade almost says, but doesn’t. These things are no longer his concern. 

He hears a cry. A thud of something being dropped carelessly. The squeak of wheels. 

When he looks again, the cart is empty and the mer is gone. 

🙫🙫🙫

HE waits for some time, staring at the shadowy corners of the great hall. All manners of items stare back at him. Delicate Portraits of late lords and ladies, gold and silver candlesticks, vases and clocks and drapes worth more than any man’s weight in precious gems. So Lord Sionis likes to flaunt his wealth, Slade reasons. No wonder the man keeps mer as playthings. 

_Playthings._ Something in his gut stirs at the sound of it. 

He ignores the sensation. It is late, and he has not eaten since the morning. A purse full of gold will buy him a hearty meal and a soft bed, perhaps even a companion or two. Just for the night. 

“I see the Deathstroke has found his way back,” says a cloying voice, and Slade snaps his attention to the end of the hall. 

Lord Sionis himself. Even with the shadows falling over his face, and the great distance between them, Slade can make out the smug, haughty look on the lord’s face. _Vainglorious,_ he thinks. Now that’s a word Adeline would have used. 

Slade wears an impassive expression, though he cannot filter the sharpness of his voice. “I am not a patient man,” he says. 

The lord laughs. “And I do apologize,” he replies. “I deemed it necessary to deliver a swift punishment to the creature, lest it attempt to _run_ once more.” 

Thoughts of the mer’s fins cross Slade’s mind. “I brought your pet. Honor the contract, and I’ll take my leave.” 

“You hunters and your gold. So incurious.” 

Slade folds his arms over his broad chest. “You hired me under false pretenses. I have no further interest in your business with the mer.” 

“False pretenses?” He laughs again. “Explain.” 

“The creature is no danger.” 

“To a Hunter, I expect not.” 

Slade snorts. “The fucking thing can’t swim.” 

“Of course it can’t.” A look of curiosity crosses the lord’s face. “Tell me. Do you enjoy my handiwork, Hunter?” 

“I fail to see how that is relevant,” Slade replies. 

“But you will.” With the sweep of his arm Sionis motions toward the end of the hall. “Come. I will show you. Then, you may take your payment and leave.” 

“A contract’s a contract. I’ll take it now.” 

The lord stops in his tracks. “If my memory serves me,” he says, “you said you would see the mer back to its enclosure. And yet you have not seen it since you left it on my doorstep. I’d say your end of the contract is yet to be completed.” 

Irritation heats Slade’s face. He stares at the other man, eye narrow and piercing. Most turn away from his gaze, overcome by the power and danger of a Hunter’s presence. But Sionis holds his ground. 

“Fine,” Slade says at last. “Show me.” 

He follows the lord deeper into the castle, into the earth. The air grows colder as they descend; the torches burn less brightly. Sionis says nothing as they walk through darkened rooms and down infinite flights of steps, a fact that both irritates and—though he is loathe to admit it—intrigues Slade. 

“The mer,” he grunts. “How did you…acquire it?” 

Sionis smiles with false humility. “A tempest hit the East Village. Peasants found it impaled on the wreckage of a shack. A rogue wave, I suppose.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “I was the only one brave enough to send men to retrieve it.” 

“How noble of you.”

“We all have our roles to play.” 

In the distance, green light falls through a stone doorway. The air is slick with moisture. “And the other mer?” Slade asks, thinking of the one the first had mentioned. 

_Dick,_ it said its name was. Except monsters shouldn’t have names. 

“Ah.” Sionis raises an eyebrow. “So you let it speak.” 

“It amused me,” Slade replies. 

“They are quite entertaining creatures, aren’t they?” Smiling, the lord gestures toward the light with a thrust of his chin. “I bought the second from some circus freaks in the southeast. The third and fourth I sought out on my own.” His eyes flash an icy blue. “Well. Not on my own, per se, but you understand what I mean.” 

“There are four of them?” Slade asks, as the first mer’s words echo in his head. 

_He said, ‘you go and get us out.’_

Sionis extends an arm, inviting him to enter the glowing room. “Just you wait,” he says, and Slade steps through. 

Green. No, not green. A rich teal light fills the vast chamber, casting shadows that dance over the arched ceiling and slick floor. But it is not the light that matters; rather, its origin holds Slade’s gaze in an icy grip. In all his travels, he has never seen anything like it. 

The water is everywhere. It laps at the stone floor, pulsing with an eerie, unnatural glow. Beyond the light, shadows are churning. 

They stand on smooth stone in the belly of a cavern, looking at the water from above. It is shallow by the rocky floor, though one meter out there is a steep drop. The stillness of it all raises hairs on the back of Slade’s neck.

It smells like death. 

A room for observation, he realizes, with mild disgust. All this to show off a few weakened monsters. 

“Do you like it?” asks Sionis. He walks across the floor and pauses at the edge of the water. His robes trail behind him, twisting white. “Took me three moons to have it prepared. The design was the most difficult part. How to make an enclosure where I can remove the creatures with ease?” 

“I see no creatures at all,” Slade replies, tearing his eyes from the glowing water. 

“Devils like to hide in the deep.” 

“The deep,” Slade repeats, looking once more into the water. Less than three meters, he estimates. Four at most. 

“Amazing isn’t it?” the lord laughs. “Hardly any water, and they still manage to hide. But nevermind that. They’ll come.” A smirk slides over his face. “Ever see a mer that cannot swim? It pulls itself over rocks, wriggling like a worm on the hook.” 

Slade grunts in reply.

“This place had gone unused for so long.” Sionis says conversationally, picking up something small and silver from a rack of weaponry. Knives, files, spears, ropes. There is a chain too, hooked up to a harness and pulley of sorts. Slade needs little imagination to decipher its purpose. 

_He hurts us. Burns. Cuts. Bad things._

He shakes off the thought and runs a hand over the knives on his belt, feeling the familiar dips and grooves. “Seems the old kings had a penchant for building castles over cave systems.” 

“Mmm. Perhaps.” The lord raises the silver object to his lips—a whistle—and gives a sharp blow. 

A moment passes. Slade’s eye follows the subtle ripple in the water, the small swells that spread toward the rocky walls of the cavern. A shadow passes beneath the surface. There is a flicker of blue. 

Another mer.

It pulls itself up onto a stone, eyes flashing with a mixture of hatred and fear. But even then it is a thing of beauty: delicate yet defined features, hair like the twilight sky, irises so wild and blue they make the ocean seem tame by comparison. And it is fierce. Powerful. Perhaps, in another existence, it would have made a good Hunter. 

Something stirs inside Slade’s belly. He chooses not to examine the cause of it. 

“The brats,” Sionis says. “Where are they?” 

Unease slithers over the mer’s expression. “Don’t hurt them,” it says. 

Rolling his eyes, the lord says, “Always so protective, this one. One might think the pups were its own.” He directs his gaze back towards the creature. “Bring them here or I’ll pry their teeth from their jaws.” 

The mer glances once at Slade, tightening its raw and bloodied fingers around the stone floor. Then in a flash, it slips back under the placid water. Slade does not need to touch the liquid to know that it is freezing. In the silence, he wonders if mer keep warm on their own. 

The softness of the thought alarms him. 

“Ah, here we are,” says Sionis, as figures rise from the glowing water. “Magnificent, aren’t they.” 

Slade stares at the three figures by his feet, keeping his face a mask of indifference. The pretty mer keeps the other figures behind it, but it is all alone and cannot hide them from Slade’s piercing eye. He sees a flash of color bright as flame, a flicker of emerald green. Their eyes are large; their faces soft.

 _Young,_ Slade thinks. Two boys. Like Grant and Joseph. Except those things aren’t like his sons at all, are they? They’re scarred and bruised, with luminous eyes and hunger-pained cheeks. 

And they’re mer. Monsters. 

The flame-colored one is the older of the two, perhaps in its late teens. The green one cannot be more than twelve or thirteen. And yet, even as it clings to the smooth shoulders of the blue mer, its face is twisted with resentment. 

“I’ve yet to cut up the small one,” Sionis says casually, picking up a knife from the rack of weapons. “I’ve found the threat of it useful for controlling the big ones. They’re rather protective beasts, I’ve found. I’m curious to examine the extent of their emotions.” 

“An experiment,” Slade grunts, staring into the blue eyes of the pretty mer. He searches for…something. Perhaps it is a foolish endeavor. 

“How else are we to learn about such creatures?” asks Sionis. He sets down the knife. “Did you know that their tails can scar just like skin? That their teeth grow throughout their lives?” 

_When teeth grow too sharp, he makes them flat. It hurts._

Slade’s reply is curt. “No.”

“Currently I am waiting to see how long I can starve them before they willingly consume human flesh.” Grinning, Sionis motions to a gray form on a set of boulders rising from the water. A body. It lies limp over the stones, one arm immersed. “It seems only fitting that a man willing to betray his master for monsters be devoured by them.”

Again Slade remembers the first mer’s words. _Servant helped._

“The big one,” Slade says suddenly, tearing his eye away from the pretty blue mer. “The one I brought back. I don’t see it.” 

Sionis clicks his tongue. “I left it in the cold room.” An ugly humor crosses his eyes. “It’s quite effective, the cold. They have difficulty breathing and moving at lower temperatures. Their wounds worsen. It seems to burn almost as much as fire. Almost.” 

Slade grunts, eyebrows furrowing slightly. “I came to see the mer in its enclosure.” 

“And you will, Hunter.” Lord Sionis offers a sickening smile. “Wait here, and I will bring it out.” 

“I’ve waited plenty already.”

“Then you have practice.” 

Slade’s lip curls over his teeth, but he gives no reply. In his mind’s eye he pictures driving a blade through the man’s throat, severing the arteries and windpipes at once. It would be easy: no matter how powerful Sionis pretends to be—and it is an act, Slade knows Gotham lords never wear their true faces—a Hunter will always be stronger. A song of violence hums beneath his skin. He’s hardly human anymore. 

Sionis leaves, and Slade is left alone with the mer. Again his fingers grace the knives at his waist, seeking some sense of familiarity. The three figures watch him, still as death. 

“Which one of you is Dick?” he asks. 

None of them speak, but a look of tentative curiosity flickers over the blue one’s face. So it’s that one, then. 

“What about them?” Slade nods at the two smaller mer. “They have names too, or are you and Big Red the only ones that like to play human?”

“Did you hurt Jason?” asks the blue mer. 

“Well aren’t you a white knight.” 

The mer stares. “I don’t know what that means.”

Slade cocks his head to one side, studying the scars along the creature’s shoulders. Silver lines cross the skin, some tiny, some less so. If it has a brand, Slade cannot see it. “Answer me, and I’ll answer you,” he says. 

The blue one turns to the other two, says something in a foreign tongue. After a moment, the green one speaks. 

“I am Damian.” 

“Tim,” says the flame-colored one. 

Slade hums. “Damian, Tim, and _Dick._ Curious.” 

“Did you hurt him?” the blue mer asks again, more forcefully. An accusation.

“No,” Slade replies. 

“Was he hurt in ocean?” Something like worry passes over its eyes. “Did I make him hurt himself?”

 _“It_ was fine.” 

_“He,”_ spits the green mer. It fixes Slade with an angry glare, but only for a moment. Then, with the flick of its tail, it dives back into the water, a shadow in the turquoise. 

Slade ignores the outburst, though his eye follows the shadow as it settles in the crook of a boulder. “Why do you care, _mer_?” he asks the blue mer. 

“Jason is friend.” 

“Things like you don’t have friends.” 

The mer’s eyes are nearly as piercing as his own. “Is it easier if you think that?” it asks.

Slade snorts. “You’re not human.”

“And neither are you,” says the flame-colored mer. 

“Maybe so,” Slade replies dryly, jaw twitching with irritation. “But at least I have legs.” 

“How well can you swim?”

“Tim,”the older mer says sharply. “Stop.”

The younger mer mutters something in that language of theirs. Doesn’t matter. The meaning is clear even if the translation is not. Giving one last look at the Hunter, the mer dips below the waves and swims away. Tries to swim. Its movements are uneven, no doubt a result of its damaged fins. 

The sight is almost pitiful. Like a wounded deer lying abed on the forest floor, bleeding out as it awaits a slow death or a bloody one, begging for a kind man to end its misery.

Slade is not a kind man. Never has been. And he is becoming sick of Gotham lords and their pets. 

“Your _friend_ can’t swim in the ocean, mer,” he says. “Do not attempt to escape again.”

“Have to,” says the blue mer.

“Mmm.” Slade peers into its eyes, wondering what is really passing behind those inhuman irises. The eyes are the window to the soul, and all that bullshit. Monsters are vulgar things: even the most cunning have no goodness, no grace inside their stares. There is nothing but rage, manipulation, seduction, brutality. Slade feels no guilt in what he does.

But the mer, it seems, is a better actor than most monsters. 

A disturbance pries his attention away from the creature. It is wet and rough, the sound of something heavy and wet being dragged across stone. 

Two men, dressed in his lordship’s white and black, emerge from the corridor, dragging the mer between them. Its tail scrapes over the rocky floor, leaving in its wake a trail of blood and single, glittering scales. The mer doesn’t seem to be moving. Its head is limp. 

“Not the water,” Sionis orders, coming into view. “Leave it out, for now.”

The men oblige. Without any decorum, they let the mer fall. It hits the stone with an ugly smack. Blood oozes from long, deep cuts along its back, dripping over the pale skin and into the cracks in the floor. And there are the bruises too: deep browns and purples erupt over its ribcage and shoulder blades, growing larger with every passing second. _Shredded,_ Slade thinks, and the word feels appropriate. He’s surprised the creature has the strength to breathe. 

There’s a small splash as the blue mer slips beneath the surface of the water. In a moment it reappears, pulling itself out of the water to reach out toward the other, lightly brushing its fingers over the bloodied skin.

Sionis swears beneath his breath. There’s a flash of white—a yelp—and the blue mer’s head snaps back. Red erupts from its nose. 

“Disgusting things,” the lord mutters, stepping away from the water. The toe of his boot is stained with blood. “Never know their place, no matter how hard I try to teach them.”

Slade looks at limp form beneath them, then at the figures watching them from the water. The blue one holds the green, shielding its eyes. 

“You do this often?” he asks, as casually as he can. 

“Not often enough, it seems.” 

“Hmm.” 

Smirking, Sionis places his heel at the swell of the mer’s spine, presses down until they hear a whimper. “Maybe this time it will take the lesson to heart.” 

A whisper from the water, just loud enough for his Hunter ears to find: _“He.”_

Slade scanned the mer’s injuries. “What did you do?” 

“Oh, all sorts of things,” Sionis replies. “They _hate_ fire, as you would expect, though burning them isn’t as much fun as pulling out their teeth or carving out pieces of their bodies. Of course, nothing wears the spirit like an interminable beating. Such powerful creatures, brought down by human tools.” 

“I see,” Slade says. 

The lord’s smile widens into a wicked expression. “Do you know what they hate most, Hunter?” 

At their feet, the mer starts to struggle against the weight of the lord’s boot. His green eyes flash with fear. At Slade, at its fellow mer. When it breathes, the sound is rough and weak. The gills on its neck begin to flutter wildly. 

Slade looks away. “I have a feeling you will tell me regardless of my answer.”

“Indeed.” Sionis chuckles. “Sure, you can beat them, whip them, starve them. But those are _physical_ wounds. They heal. Well. Most of them, at least.”

“The point?” Slade asks sharply. “You are wasting my time.”

Sionis waves him off. “Real trauma doesn’t always leave a mark,” he purrs, removing his boot from the creature’s back. 

It gasps at once, gulping down air before a pale hand wraps around its neck and squeezes. Then, the hissing starts. It spits and writhes, twisting around as its tail flaps uselessly against the stone. _Thwap. Thwap. Thwap._

“Please,” it chokes out. “No. _No._ ” 

On the water, the blue mer forces the other two beneath the surface. 

“They just _hate_ this,” Sionis mutters, and thrusts two of his fingers inside the mer’s gills. 

The sound it makes is sickening. _Wet._

Terror and pain cross the mer’s face. Its pupils are blown wide, black holes that eclipse the green. It opens its mouth as if to scream, but the sound falls apart as a gurgle. Weak hands fight against the lord, clawing at his robes, his shoulders. Another broken scream. A body writhing in agony and humiliation. 

Slade’s stomach clenches at the sight. 

“Don’t know why it bothers them so much,” Sionis says. He twists his fingers, pushing them deeper into the folds of the gills. A wetness sloshes out between them. “But by the gods, it is _fun_ to see them squirm.”

The mer sobs.

“You’ve made your point,” Slade says. He fixes his eye on the lord, away from the convulsing body. “I need not see any more.” 

“But don’t you see it?” Sionis asks. With his free hand he strokes the mer’s hair, rubs away the blood and tears that have settled on its cheeks. “I have discovered how to control monsters.”

“You’ve discovered how to torture them,” Slade grunts.

“You think so?” 

There is a wet _pop_ as the lord withdraws his fingers without warning. The mer collapses with a whimper, covering its gills with both hands as it rocks back and forth on the stone. Its stare is vacant. A cold acceptance.

Slade thinks of his sons. 

Sionis wipes the slick on the base of his tunic, then smiles. “They really are stupid creatures,” he says. 

“I trust your demonstration is complete,” Slade says coolly, staring out over the water. 

“Three hundred gold pieces.” 

Slade looks at the lord, waiting. 

“I will pay an additional one hundred pieces,” Sionis says. “More, even.” 

“For what, pray tell.” 

“I study monsters,” he replies casually, prodding the mer with the toe of his boot. “You hunt them. You were _made_ to hunt them.”

Slade’s eye narrows. “I am a Hunter,” he says. “I do not fetch beasts for prying lords. Especially for such a meager price.”

Sionis reaches into his robes and pulls out the whistle. “You misunderstand,” he says, chuckling as he places the silver against his lips. “I am not paying for your services, Hunter. Merely your time.” 

The sound pierces Slade’s ears. Then it is more of the same. The mer resurface, blue then flame then green, with the blue out in front. It casts a look at its injured friend, one full of sorrowed things, pained things, things that Slade once knew all too well. 

He hates that he recognizes them. 

“Do you see this?” Sionis says, pointing at the bloodied mer. “This is what happens when you disobey me.” 

“Don’t,” whispers the flame-colored mer. Too quiet for anyone but Slade to hear. 

“I think you’ve made your point,” Slade grunts. 

Sionis laughs as he kneels once more. Blood soaks the white fabric of his robes. Almost gently he reaches out, strokes the torn fins along the mer’s fingers. It is alarmingly still beneath him, eyes impassive and distant. 

“I’ve hardly shown you anything,” he says, and his touch turns violent. 

In a swift motion he wrenches the mer’s hand away from its gills, squeezing the wrist until it cries out in pain. Its green irises flash with a myriad of emotions—disgust, anger, misery, fear, desperation—and it’s fighting against the lord, but its body is slick with blood and it seems so weakened already, skin pale and shivering—

“You don’t need to do this,” Slade says gruffly, and not a second later a voice cries out from the water.

“Hurt me.”

The lord pauses, standing. He fixes his eyes on the figures in the water, gaze hot and sharp. 

Slade knows right away that it was the blue one that spoke. He can see it in it’s wide, desperate eyes. The way the green one looks at it with confusion.the way the flame-colored one tries to pull it away from Sionis, whose face is a mask of anger. 

“Don’t,” the blue mer says. Slowly it pulls itself onto the rocky floor, further and further until its arms can no longer bear the weight of its body. It shivers in the air. “I told him to go. It was me.”

Sionis stands. “Would you look at that,” he says, a hint of amusement on his lips. He turns to Slade and tuts softly. “They’re learning how to fake empathy.” 

Slade thinks about the knives at his belt, pictures them in his mind. The hard edge of steel. Smooth grooves in silver. Heavy. Solid. “Faking,” he repeats. 

The lord laughs. “Well, if it wants it so bad…” He trails off, already taking wet steps toward the blue mer, kicking the injured one as he passes. 

Slade does his best to ignore his clenching stomach. Something so small is hardly worthy of his attention. But the mer at his feet is shivering and wincing, and blood is soaking its hair, and even though Slade knows it’s a monster—he _knows_ this—he looks into its face and sees something else. He does not like what he sees. 

“You want to know the best part about owning these creatures?” Sionis asks. When Slade looks, he sees that the lord has one arm wrapped around the blue mer’s neck, holding its torso level with his hip. 

“Do I?” Slade replies flatly. 

“Absolute control.” The lord hums, stroking the mer’s hair with his free hand. His fingers fall down its ears and jaw, across its cheeks, over its lips, pushing against the soft flesh until it accepts him. A suggestive gesture that crosses the line of vulgarity. 

Unable to turn away, Slade watches, lips pressed into a thin line. There is little that can cause a Hunter discomfort. And yet, he does not want to be here, in this cavern, beneath this castle. It has been a long time since he has wanted anything. He does not like wanting, either. 

“Do you have control, Hunter?” Sionis asks, forcing his fingers deeper into the mer’s mouth. 

“My business is my own,” Slade grunts. 

The lord’s eyes twinkle. “Would you like control?” 

“You call that control?” 

“I do, yes.” 

The blue mer is shock-still, betraying no sign of life but the quick flutter of its long, dark lashes. On its face is a look frozen somewhere between terror and longing: blown pupils, soft brow, tight jaw. 

A plea. 

Slade huffs, fingering his knives. From the corner of his eye he can see the two younger mer watching them, grey eyes and green eyes glowing like moons above the water. “I have no desire to stick my fingers into a domesticated beast,” he replies. 

“No?” Sionis removes his fingers from the mer’s mouth, bringing them to the blushing folds of its gills. For a moment, he does nothing but caress them gently, and then the tenderness is gone and he is forcing two fingers inside. 

This mer has enough strength not to scream. Soundlessly it writhes in the lord’s grip, twisting and jerking as its tail thrashes behind it. And yet, even as it chokes and sobs, its eyes are fixed on its injured friend. 

It doesn’t seem to be breathing anymore. 

“We can study monsters, you and I,” Sionis says casually, as if there were no sobbing mer between them. “Work for me, and your purse will never be empty. You will have all the power a man could desire.” 

“This isn’t power,” Slade says. “This is unnecessary cruelty.” 

The lord’s lips pull into a smug grin. “Who says they are not one and the same?”

“I want no part of this.” 

“You will have a home,” Sionis says. He twists his digits inside the mer’s gills until, at last, a broken scream cuts the air. “When was the last time you had a home, Hunter?” 

_I’m sorry, son. I have no choice._

“Enough,” Slade orders. 

The mer wheezes. “J—jass—” it chokes out, tears behind its eyelids. 

_Jason._

Sionis merely laughs. “Come on, Hunter,” he says. “Don’t tell me your years have softened your heart.” 

“Stop this.” 

“Think about what you could be by my side. Do the _right thing_ , Hunter.” 

The red mer is completely still. Breathing, but just barely. And a strange discoloration has settled into its skin, and still it bleeds out onto the stone, and with each passing second the blue mer grows more distraught as it watches his friend losing color. As he watches his friend _die._

_Can you hear me, boy?_

_I’m sorry, son. I have no choice._

Slade steps forward, one hand already at his weapons. “I said, _enough._ ” he snarls.

Sionis looks at him, then at his weapon. A fresh wave settles over the lord’s face as he twists his fingers until Dick screams once more. “Foolish old man,” he hisses. “You dare threaten a lord of—” 

It is a rash decision, born of many tumultuous emotions. Hatred for ignoble lords. Guilt over the death of his sons. Fury on behalf of the mer, who have done nothing and suffered so much. Fear for what he might become, if he remains stagnant. 

Or maybe Slade strikes because he is a Hunter, and a Hunter must do as he has always done. 

There is a spray of crimson as Slade slices the lord’s throat. The cut is deep, a severance of his esophagus and arteries at once. For half a second Sionis stares, mouth agape in disbelief. His limbs loosen. Dick falls to the floor. And then Sionis falls too, grasping at his neck as the deluge of blood pours over his fingers. He speaks; the words are a gurgle. His robes are stained red.

Then the life fades from his eyes and he is no more.

Slade tucks his blade back into his belt, breathing deep. Kills grant him clarity. The Hunter’s boon, they call it. One is never so in tune with reality. 

In this reality, Slade finds himself watching Dick’s weak attempts to stir Jason. 

“Jay,” Dick whispers. There is too much distance between them; he can do nothing but push his fingers against the swell of Jason’s spine. In a second his eyes are fixed on Slade. “Help him.”

“Tell me,” Slade says gruffly. 

“Too cold. Needs warm.” 

It is direct enough. Without another word, Slade slips off his cloak and places it over the mer’s body. At once Jason’s breathing seems to calm, evening out into small, slow breaths. Something leaves Slade’s shoulders, a tension he hadn’t known he’d kept.

A minute passes in silence. The other mer have resurfaced, wrapping their arms around Dick as they glance at Sionis’s body. Turquoise light flits over their faces, their bodies bodies. 

“Thank you,” Dick says. 

Slade sighs deeply, turning to look at the dead lord on the stone. The clarity has already faded. Now all that is left is a single, burning question. 

_Was it worth it?_

🙫🙫🙫

🙫🙫🙫

THE way out is through the corridor. No men are there to obstruct their path. Perhaps they are used to their lord disappearing for long periods of time, and do not think to check. Or perhaps they know exactly what has happened and do not care. Either way, Slade’s first exit goes unnoticed. As does the second. As does the third, and the fourth. 

He leaves the mer outside, nestled together on the mossy rocks outside the castle. They cling to each other for warmth, watching him with eyes that glow softly, cutting through the pitch black of night. 

The glow lingers in Slade’s mind as he leads Kane to his lordship’s stables and fastens a new cart to his back. Only an unwise few try to stop him, but they are quickly whelmed by Slade’s icy stare. No swords must be drawn. 

After, Slade guides Kane around the castle, to the nook where the mer are hidden. He reaches for Dick, only to have the mer push his hand away.

“Them first,” Dick says, nodding at the others. 

Slade stares for a moment. Then, he does as the mer asks. 

“Thank you,” Dick says again, after they are all huddled in the back of the cart. 

“Don’t thank me.”

“Why not?” Damian asks. His brow is tight with suspicion, and for this, Slade cannot blame him. They still see a Hunter, a murderer. “Why can’t we thank?”

Slade takes Kane by the reins and sighs deeply. It is a long way to an ocean they cannot swim in. “I don’t know how to help you, kid,” he says. 

“But you will try?”

He squeezes his fist around the reins, tighter and tighter until the blood no longer runs to his knuckles. “I’m a Hunter,” he says. “I only know how to kill monsters.”

“Not monsters,” Jason mutters weakly.

Slade’s lips tug upward in amusement. “Perhaps some are not what they seem.” 

The mer blinks slowly before nodding. Then he closes his eyes and curls into himself, wincing at the movement. But the pain seems to dissipate when Tim places a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

Slade thinks once more of his sons. Grant and Joseph never got along so well, at least not that he can remember. In his mind’s eye, he can only picture the worst. The blood, the screams, Adeline’s cry of rage and despair. 

“What he did,” he begins, nodding at the mer’s shredded fins, “will it heal?” 

Something flickers over Dick’s face. “Need help,” he replies.

“Help.”

“Magic.” 

Slade grunts in acknowledgement. Part of him knew this would be the answer, just as he knows he will not leave them now. Perhaps, in some small measure, he has always known such a thing would come to him. Like an itch where he cannot reach, or a shadow just beyond his peripheries. 

With the click of his tongue, he orders Kane forward. The horse sighs as it takes the first step, neck and haunches tensing with the unexpected weight of her cargo. But she is strong. Slade knows what the steed can do, knows that she can take them away into the night. 

It is better to dwell upon the things he knows. The unknown is just too great. 

Slade guides Kane around the castle, back toward the cliffside roads. Every so often he glances back at the shrinking castle, his Hunter’s senses humming with the anticipation of combat. But still there is nothing. 

_Perhaps,_ Slade thinks, remembering the body in the water, _there is no one with the will to take revenge._

The thought is satisfying, in some small way. 

He glances back one final time, just to watch the castle disappear over the swelling cliffs. The strange serenity of it directs his gaze toward the cart, where all four mer appear to be asleep, still huddled together like birds in the nest. There is a placidity on their faces even as their bodies shield each other from the world. 

Slade sighs into his collar, and looks away. He knows nothing of mer. A Hunter knows only the cold edge of steel, the crack of breaking bones, the smell of sweat, the taste of blood and ash on his tongue. Everything else is lost. 

Well. Not everything. 

The mer awaken as he brings them to the calm cove at the edge of the ocean. The tide is high, yet the waves lap gently over the rocks, leaving pools that ebb and flow gently. No eerie phosphorescence; only a soft sheen of moonlight settles over the water. 

“You will be safe here,” Slade grunts. 

One by one he heaves the mer into his arms and places them carefully in the pool. Even in the darkness the water comes alive with color. Slade fixes his eye on each mer in turn, mapping their faces in his mind. Pretty blue, defiant green, pensive flame, weary red. 

Inland, common folk speak of the beauty and danger of the mer. Their words are not enough. 

Jason stares up at him, his tail slicing the dark like a pendulum. Already the skin on his back has begun to knit itself together, though the flesh around his gills remains angry and inflamed. Dick’s are much the same, though he hides them well. 

“And you?” Jason asks. 

Behind them, the chaparral landscape crawls toward civilization. Bristling shrubs and bowing trees, in scattered clusters, far as the eye can see. The terrain is a far cry from a soft mattress, a feather pillow. But Slade has had worse. Much worse. 

He points. “I will rest there,” he says. “In the morning, I will come for you.” 

“Promise?” 

“I promise,” Slade replies, and guides his horse once more up the bluffs. In the distance, waves crash rhythmically on distant shores while nightbirds call into the wind. The moon is a pearl above inky water, where four figures watch the stars twisting in the sky. Any ordinary man would look right past, seeing nothing of significance, merely shadows. 

But Slade Wilson is no ordinary man. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
